Archive for September 11th, 2018

10 September 2018 – A trial run of an innovative system designed to clean up the world’s seas and oceans, founded by UN Environment Programme (UNEP) “Champion of the Earth” laureate Boyan Slat, has set off from San Francisco, in a bid to begin the removal of the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The Ocean Cleanup/Pierre Augier | The Ocean Cleanup vessel is aiming to clean up plastic pollution in the Pacific Ocean. It left San Francisco on its first voyage on 8 September 2019.

This huge mass of marine debris, situated in the North Pacific Ocean, halfway between the Californian coast and Hawaii, is estimated by Slat’s Ocean Cleanup organization to measure 1.6 million square kilometres – 3 times the size of France – and contain 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic. That amounts to 250 pieces for every person on the planet.

Corruption is present in all countries, “rich and poor, North and South, developed and developing,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on 10 September 2018 told the Security Council, at a session on tackling corruption for the sake of peace and international security.

“Numbers show the startling scope of the challenge,” the UN chief said, citing World Economic Forum estimates that corruption costs at least $2.6 trillion – or five per cent of global gross domestic product.

The world risks crossing the point of no return on climate change, with disastrous consequences for people across the planet and the natural systems that sustain them, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on 10 September 2018 warned, calling for more leadership and greater ambition for climate action, to reverse course.

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UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe | A family in Uvs Province, Mongolia, using a solar panel to generate power for their ger, a traditional Mongolian tent